Arthur walked for several more hours, his legs growing heavy with fatigue but his determination never wavering. Finally, the sun tucked itself behind the horizon, and the pale moon dawned overhead, casting an ethereal silver glow across the endless field.
'Would you look at that,' Arthur thought with a hint of pride. 'I survived a whole day in the Second Realm... that's a whole day longer than I expected to!'
He chuckled hopelessly at his own morbid joke as he continued his march through the darkness that gradually enveloped the field. The night air felt surprisingly cool against his skin after the day's oppressive heat, bringing welcome relief to his sweat-soaked body.
Without warning, Arthur stopped in his tracks, a perplexed expression crossing his face. Something was happening to him—something inexplicable yet undeniable.
'What the hell is this feeling?'
He raised his hands before his face, examining them closely as if expecting to find some visible manifestation of the strange sensation coursing through his body. His fingers looked the same—no transformation, no glow, no outward sign of change—yet everything felt profoundly different.
'I feel... stronger. Much stronger.'
Arthur's body suddenly felt buoyant, almost as if he were floating. His muscles, weary from hours of walking, now thrummed with renewed vigor. Most peculiar of all, his eyesight seemed sharper in the darkness than it had been during daylight hours, as though a veil had been lifted from his perception.
The sensation was oddly comforting, like being wrapped in the cold embrace of someone—or something—he trusted implicitly. Or perhaps more accurately, something that trusted him. Arthur found himself fighting back a smile without understanding why he even wanted to.
'Does this have something to do with my ability?' he wondered, flexing his fingers and feeling the strange power coursing through them. 'Or something to do with this god-forsaken field?'
A tinge of fear washed over him at the thought that the roses might be affecting him in some new, insidious way. He shook his head vigorously, as if to dislodge any corruption that might be taking root, and forced himself to keep moving. Whatever was happening to him, standing still wouldn't solve the mystery.
As he continued through the night, the odd feeling remained, a constant presence looming at the edges of his awareness. It neither intensified nor diminished but simply existed alongside him, like a shadow or an echo.
Then, something even stranger occurred.
As Arthur walked, he suddenly perceived something nearby—not through sight, but through a sense he couldn't name. It wasn't quite touch, nor was it sound or smell. It was almost as if an invisible tendril had brushed against his consciousness, alerting him to a presence.
He focused on this peculiar sensation and realized it emanated from his left. Instantly alert, Arthur snapped his head in that direction, anticipating danger—only to discover yet another dead Grimhound lying among the roses about twenty feet away.
The creature's corpse was remarkably visible despite the distance and darkness, every detail crystal clear to his enhanced night vision. But that clarity also meant he could see the roses surrounding it with equal sharpness, so he quickly returned his gaze to the path ahead, unwilling to risk their temptation.
'What the hell is going on?' he thought, bewildered by this new development. 'It's like I had eyes in the side of my head, but that's impossible. How did I know it was there?'
The oddities continued to accumulate as the night progressed, but Arthur refused to let them derail his journey. He pushed onward, repeating a simple mantra to maintain his focus.
'I need to keep moving. I need to keep moving.'
The words became a rhythm matching his footsteps, giving his mind something concrete to cling to amid the strangeness.
Over the next two hours, the sensation of perceiving things without seeing them recurred several times. Each time, Arthur would confirm with a quick glance that another dead Grimhound lay where his mysterious sense had indicated. Eventually, the experience became almost routine, no longer startling him as it had initially.
Which is why, when the feeling came again, Arthur didn't immediately react with alarm—until he realized that whatever he was sensing this time was moving.
And moving fast.
In one fluid motion, Arthur spun around, his mind reaching instinctively toward his realm core. The odachi materialized in his grip as darkness coalesced into solid steel, just in time to meet the threat barreling toward him.
A dark shape cut through the night sky at tremendous speed, already seconds from his face when Arthur finally glimpsed it. Acting purely on instinct, he swung his sword in a wild, desperate arc.
The creature extended vicious talons to defend itself, but Arthur's blade connected with shocking force. The impact sent the attacker careening sideways, tumbling through the air before righting itself with an angry shriek that pierced the night.
Arthur stared at his hands and sword in disbelief, momentarily distracted by the unexpected power behind his swing. The blade felt lighter in his grip, responding to his movements with a fluidity he hadn't experienced during daylight hours.
But awe and wonder would have to wait. Arthur lifted his gaze to finally behold the monster that had attacked him.
Perched among the roses about ten yards away was a creature unlike anything Arthur had encountered before. Unlike the eyeless, sensory-deprived Grimhound, this predator had clearly evolved for nocturnal hunting. Its body resembled a grotesque fusion of bat and human, with leathery wings spanning at least eight feet from tip to tip. A gaunt, humanoid torso supported the massive wings, while the creature's legs ended in taloned feet that gripped the ground with unnatural dexterity.
But it was the face that froze Arthur's blood. No mere animal visage, it possessed an almost human countenance—if humans had skin pulled taut over prominent bones, mouths that split their faces nearly ear to ear, and eyes that gleamed with eerie yellow luminescence in the darkness.
The creature hissed at Arthur, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth designed for tearing flesh. A long, serpentine tongue flicked out, tasting the air as it assessed its prey.
Arthur raised his odachi into a defensive position, the blade glinting in the moonlight. The strange power that had awakened within him at nightfall now surged through his limbs, sharp and electric. Whatever this transformation was, he would use it to his advantage.
"Come on then," he whispered to the winged horror, a grim smile spreading across his face as he settled into his best attempt at a fighting stance.
The creature tilted its head, almost as if it understood his challenge. For a heartbeat, predator and prey regarded each other across the field of dead roses—two beings from different worlds, linked by the simple imperative of survival.
Then, with a shriek that seemed to tear the very fabric of night, the monster launched itself at Arthur once more, talons extended and mouth agape in anticipation of the kill.